Computing devices, including personal computers, are typically adapted to be operated by one user at a time. Such a computing device is configured to allow the user to interact with all peripherals connected to the computing device, including user interface peripherals like a display, keyboard, and mouse. When the computing device first starts and detects connected peripherals, or when a peripheral is newly attached to the computing device, the computing device is configured to manage each of those peripherals in the same way. The computing device may provide access to each of the peripherals to all users of the computing device or to the user that is presently operating the computing device.
In some cases, a computing device may be operated by more than one user at a time. In some such cases, assigning ownership of or access to individual peripherals to certain users may be desirable. This may be done such that more than one user does not attempt to access a peripheral at a same time, to protect the privacy of data stored by each a user on a peripheral, or to ensure that each user is able to interact with the computing device with a full set of user interface peripherals (e.g., such that each user has a display, keyboard, and mouse). Because the computing device does not have functionality to manage peripherals differently and to assign peripherals to different users, in such cases the users or an administrator will manually configure the computing device to assign peripherals to each user. To assign the peripherals, the user or administrator will examine the set of available peripherals and select peripherals to be assigned to each user, then reconfigure the computing device to identify the selected peripherals can be accessed and used only by the identified user.